The Pinsetter

By Norman Gerard

Kansas-born journalist David Kane never expected he would land a lucrative position at New Yorks Crawley News. Still, he does, and the position is all he could have hoped for until illegal phone hacking allegations by Crawley land on the backs of several New York staffers. The Big Apple isnt so glitzy anymore, even for David.

A position opens in Crawleys Nigerian office when a journalist was murdered while investigating the fraudulent testing and distribution of a meningitis vaccine. Despite some of the obvious dangers associated with a foreign country, David gladly accepts his relocation to Africa. After all, Nigeria is a cultural mecca, leading the country in wealth and oil exportation. He receives his first assignment immediately: investigating a bloody coup in Central Africa.

The small town boy is soon thrust into a front-line political and religious conflict. Hes captured, caught in the deadly Ebola outbreak, and even has a steamy affair with his married translatoran irresistible Nigerian woman recruited by the CIA. David receives the help of a seasoned Scottish journalist, and the newbie Crawley recruit will certainly have a lot to write aboutif he has better luck than his dead predecessor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491755600

Norman Gerard

Norman Gerard started his career in the theater and has directed films including Disney’s EPCOT. He is the author of The Wreck of the Alamo, The Assassin from Stavanger, and The Dunsmore Dossier. Gerard has produced and directed two feature films: Snake Skin Jacket and The Murder in China Basin.

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Copyright © 2015 Norman Gerard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5561-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5560-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921879

iUniverse rev. date: 12/27/2014

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

There was no going back in war.

CHAPTER ONE

It was a hot sticky sugar-melting cinnamon bun, and sticky everything else August afternoon in The Big Apple. From the forty-third floor headquarters of Crawley News Service you could see the waves radiate on the sidewalk below. David Kane, a senior reporter for Crawley was abruptly summoned to editor-and-chief, Martin Fisk’s, air-conditioned corner office overlooking Times Square. David had reported to Fisk for more than a decade. He, along with several other staff journalists, met with Boss Fisk on Mondays and Wednesdays at ten o’clock sharp — sauf Thanksgiving, Christmas and Labor Day, the scheduled days off.

Fisk was a waifish fifty-five year old man with thin red-orange hair that he trimmed close to his scalp so nobody could see the volume of hair he was losing. Orange because the little hair he had was grey, and the black hair dye turned orange in three days. Fisk was exceptionally vain: thin lips, boney fingers and feminine mannerisms, which didn’t necessarily imply he was gay, even though he was. To be more accurate, Boss Fisk was sexless, and his pent-up sexual energy governed by mistrust and paranoia spilled into his management-style. If he had surrendered to the obvious, it would have been a great relief to everyone. Fisk rarely if ever looked anyone in the eye when he spoke. This day was no exception.

Sit, sit, he said, speaking in his slow seemingly friendly Southern drawl — his back to the congress of reporters and office staffers. Fisk stood at his usual power spot: the corner window with a pigeon’s eye view at the hoi polloi below. Tourists turning their heads every-which direction lost in the wonder of New York glitz, businessmen racing to or from wherever it is they race to in Manhattan, directionless beggars and poets lost and shuffling with nowhere to go. Traffic jams, street vendors, ministers preaching brimstone and fire, pro and anti-abortion, same-sex marriage, marijuana laws, GMO food tampering, you name it. Times Square was the center of the universe.

Fisk had a god’s eye view from his perch, but he wasn’t interested in ant-life below. He was forever hoping to capture a glimpse of the famous red-tailed hawk known as Pale Male that lived and hunted in downtown Manhattan for the past decade.

True Manhattanites followed Pale Male’s exploits on blogs, tweets, local television and newspaper editorials. Pale Male was a celebrity and more breathtakingly significant than spotting Madonna or Liza shopping on Fifth Avenue.

David’s stomach was in butterflies worried he could be fired. His life centered on his job with Crawley. There was a recession, businesses were not hiring, and the news media was transforming from print to video streaming. David was afraid he was becoming a dinosaur. He glared at Fisk and resented the power he had over his future.

Fisk craned for a possible glimpse of the feathered celebrity as he informed the gathering of the company’s shake-up. Personnel were going to be reassigned to make room for the London-based staff, who were temporarily moving in until the brouhaha over payoffs to the London police for celebrity news cooled off.

Ms. Dutmost from the London office was taking over the New York office as Managing Editor. Her longtime boyfriend, who also worked for Crawley, stayed behind in London and took a job as Prime Minister Cameron’s media chief. Cameron apologized later for the hiring claiming he had been misinformed about his media chief’s involvement in kickbacks.

The accepted axiom in the business of journalism is Information is power. And one man’s freedom of speech is another’s right to privacy is what it comes down to. Scoops and headlines about anyone in the limelight generated sales in all mediums — radio, television and print. Specifically, paying a policeman for an exclusive inside story on a celebrity didn’t come as a shock to anyone, especially the snollygosters in Crawley’s London office.

The question under the court’s review boiled down to who authorized the payoffs? How high up did it go—both on the paying side (Crawley executive and management level) and the receiving side (police, commanders and even judges)?

The news business was slow and since it was driven by headlines — in times like these headlines needed to be manufactured.

From Casablanca (1942) the film encounter between Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Captain Renault (Claude Rains), the French occupational authority in Morocco in RICK’S Night Club:

CAPT. RENAULT: This café is closed until further notice!

RICK: How can you close me up; on what grounds?

CAPT. RENAULT: I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling is going on in here!

The croupier interrupts and hands Capt. Renault a handful of cash.

CROUPIER: Your winnings, sir.

Capt. Renault slyly pockets the money and says, Thank you very much and then orders the club closed. Everybody out at once!

Shocked! Everybody knew how information was gathered and that news organizations paid for stories, and paid even more for exclusives.

The public wanted to know, and as far as officials upholding the public’s trust and being above selling what they knew, that was being Pollyannaish, and nobody in Manhattan would ever want to be saddled or accused of being naïve or Pollyannaish. The label was far worse than the crime of bribery, and that went doubly in the sophisticated London headquarters. Tisk-tisk!

A few ceremonial wrists were slapped and some sparkling and high-sounding self-promotional speeches about the ethics in the business, and then after a short breather, life would go on as before.

Boss Fisk followed London’s orders like a good subject, which is why he maintained his job. Times were tough and employment for journalists was stagnant. Older-wiser journalists weren’t dying off fast enough, and digital distribution technology was rapidly becoming consolidated and centralized. The ink and paper newspaper businesses were rapidly becoming dinosaurs.

The Internet, streaming news on phones and tablets were mainstream and part of the brave new world. Life as we knew it had moved from terra firma to The Cloud.

Old school journalists who prided themselves on research were being dismissed for being too slow. They were terminated to balance corporate budgets worldwide. News had evolved into an instantaneous media. There was less and less time to research a story adequately. Funds from advertising to support thorough research were drying up faster than the statistics attributed to the Attention Deficit readership.

A British consortium managed by an Australian-born entrepreneur, capitalizing on a 30% drop in the value of the U.S. dollar, expanded its cable channels, broadcasting primarily from their studios in Rockefeller Center. The Aussie as the called him, hired a former NBC executive and one-time Nixon operative, who drove Crawley News Service to become the dominant cable news network in the United States.

People were afraid of the Crawley tyrants who were accused of running the company like bullies and tyrants.

The news business, like most contemporary businesses were constantly seeking ways to cut costs and maximize profits. The thought that a news organization would pay for information by way of insider tips in the stock market, government contracts or appropriations, again, didn’t shock or alarm anyone even though the practice was blatantly illegal.

Fisk read off the personnel reassignments in his usual distant monotone and disinterested voice.

Then, suddenly and without any apparent provocation or warning, his voice squeaked with excitement and he perked up on his toes.

Oh fuck! he exclaimed as if he’d just won the lottery. Did you see that? he asked, quickly turning to the small gathering.

Everyone but David got up and rushed to the window to see what Fisk was excited about. He must have just seen a shooting, a mugging, a robbery, an accident or something equally horrific.

Look there, he said pointing across the canyon toward Park Avenue. It’s the fucking ‘Pale Male’ with a tiny outmatched sparrow in his talons. It was hardly a fair match.

Jesus-fucking-Christ — a fucking kill! he shrieked, gasping for air and barely able to string words together. And then the red-tailed hawk flew away.

David remained seated, thinking Fisk had seen The Incredible Hulk or Spiderman, and he wasn’t interested in Fisk’s fantasies.

It took a moment for Fisk to catch his breath before he settled back to business. He handed everyone a manila envelope with their sealed marching orders, and then one by one the monkeys, as Fisk referred to journalists, filed out of his office like zombies unsure of their future — all except David.

Could you kindly wait until the others leave? Fisk asked handing David his envelope. I’d like to have a word with you in private.

Here it comes, David thought. It was not a secret that they hadn’t ever gotten along and didn’t care for each other. This was a perfect opportunity for Fisk to admonish David and release a decade’s worth of pent up ill feelings.

It was thought to be too expensive to terminate David outright, given his tenure and compensation Crawley News Corp. would have to pay him to leave. Firing might even make him a martyr and set off a rebellion and outcry from the other American journalists. And in American parlance, that meant LAWSUITS.

Transferring David Kane was far more expedient and less costly. Once transferred it would be easier to replace him with other worker bees. The process was inevitable, albeit as slow as the melting polar ice cap. Management in London thought that after a while the Americans wouldn’t be missed, and the New York machine would learn to get along without the British invaders.

Absence and long distance was a tried and true method to end most relationships.

Life goes on. Humans have the ability to adapt, psychologists agree; all part of the human condition and "survival of the fittest."

David originally moved to New York far away from Kansas to pursue a career in journalism, but mostly to forget his live-in college girlfriend who married her gynecologist three months after graduation.

Open your envelope, Fisk insisted. "You are being transferred to our office in Nigeria. It’s a hotbed of news. Coup d’états, religious strife, big oil, greed and corruption, he smirked as David tried to read the half page memo. There’s plenty of material to write about."

War and pestilence, a journalist’s wet dream, David smirked out of the side of his mouth.

Hell, reminds me of my hometown rural Mississippi, laughed Fisk. You’ll thank me for this one day when you collect your Pulitzer. You won’t forget to mention me, will you? he added with lazy vowel sounds and a sliding Southern drawl. You’ll become a fucking modern day Tennessee Williams!

Fisk spared any additional personal animosity. David’s exile to West Africa said it all.

It’s only for six months, said Fisk pointing his boney finger to the terms of employment written on the memo. We’ll review your status in six months. This could work out to be a world-class promotion.

The United States government was shut for the past ten days due to partisan bickering over the government’s budget and spending limits. Ninety percent of Federal employees were furloughed during an era when the Federal Reserve labeled the economy anemic. The country was wrestling with the advent of a national health care policy, Obamacare — managed by the loveable IRS. The Federal Justice System was perusing indictments of the country’s leading banks as well as the bank’s high profile managers and CEOs. The same held true for Wall Street hedge funds and the personalities of their flamboyant CEOs.

Why was the government going after hedge funds and banks?

The prolific American bank robber-philosopher Willie Sutton (1901–1980) had the obvious answer. Willie said he robbed banks because that’s where the money was.

There was always a new crop of stories to write about. Corruption in the wake of a hurricane that devastated the New Jersey coast, an oil drilling mishap in the Gulf of Mexico by British Petroleum, celebrity marriages and divorces, performance enhancing drugs by star athletes, and sex scandals, sex scandals, sex scandals. There was always material to write about at home, but David was heading to Africa, and a whole new series of adventures awaited.

David looked Fisk in the eye and asked sarcastically, Tell me, again, why am I being exiled to Alba, or was it Nigeria? The action is here, man, Manhattan! Any ‘Fake it ‘til you make it’ New Yorker will tell you that. ‘If you can make it here you can make it anywhere!’

It’s a matter of moving our resources and best people around the globe, Fisk smiled. Orders from Headquarters, he rhymed.

‘The British are coming?’

They never left, Fisk smarted back, losing patience with questions of meaningless drivel from David.

Fisk peered into David’s bloodshot eyes and screamed, Pack your shit and be on the plane to West Africa in three days.

There was a ticket to Abuja, Nigeria in the envelope with his marching orders, along with fifty crisp new hundred-dollar bills meant as an incentive to leave peacefully. There was no reason to belabor it since details would come in an email David could mull over on his long flight to Africa.

Crawley News was known as The Fear Factory by its employees. Management fired half the editorial staff. The paper would henceforth rely on more freelance journalists to eliminate expensive health care costs. Thus began the shuffling of personnel and Game of Thrones at Crawley News, London and the offices at Crawley, New York.

Diana Dutmost, a big titted thirty-two year old blond babe with a shrill English voice that often squeaked above a high C, was transferred from London to manage the New York operation. One could only imagine the amplitude of the pitch during her orgasm. Double-D, as some folks called her, entered the business as a junior executive on a fast track with little more than a marketing background. Her people skills quickly carried her to a top executive post.

News about sleazy dealings between celebrities and politicians particularly fanned the public’s curiosity and made news in the London gossip columns, television shows and in the courts. In turn (or hand-in-hand) scandals translated to greater advertising revenue for the Crawley Empire.

News services had gathered information via illegal wiretaps since the onset of the Morse Code in the 1830s.

It was the season of whistleblowers. The United States government whistleblower, Edward Snowden, working for the C.I.A. and N.S.A. admitted, while in exile in Moscow, that the Obama government tapped the phones of America’s closest allies, including the presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Brasil, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president François Hollande.

In London, Ms. Dutmost was responsible for arranging payoffs to the police for scoops in a phone-hacking scandal known as Crawley-Gate. She was transferred to New York to escape propinquity of fellow journalists-turned- cannibals who were now her fiercest critics.

On a television talk show, one of her colleagues was asked why she was being so critical of Ms. Dutmost. The journalist explained, It wasn’t personal, it was just business.

An editorial in a high-brow London Sunday rag characterized the pursuit of Crawley-Gate by the news outlets as opportunistic cannibalism within the industry and an opportunity to rearrange the deck chairs aimed at knocking Crawley, the big gorilla of gossip, off its enviable high perch. Exposing the $1.6 billion phone hacking scandal was a juicy story — Schadenfreude!

The Crawley Empire flourished on reports of government leaks and kickbacks. It was ironic that the model had come back to bite the Morlocks.¹

The way Crawley looked at it, they were buying news stories, and as long as the stories were factual they were not committing a crime. They bought stories (an expense) from reputable sources and sold (income) those stories over their news and entertainment networks. That was their business. If the public believed anyone was unethical or sleazy, the weight of the accusations should have fallen on Crawley News.

Nobody forced an informant to take the money, was the defense Crawley’s lawyers stood behind.

Crawley News was a victim of having the spotlight turned on them, and the situation made them very uncomfortable.

Dog-eat-dog: Get the story any way you can, was the Crawley motto. Cover your own ass, was understood and was subscribed to without exception.

Crawley’s Empire was beginning to crumble under the scrutiny of making payoffs to public officials. To add to its woes, Mr. Crawley and his wife, thirty-eight years his junior, had filed for divorce. Some say she was a gold-digger from the get-go.

Whatever the DNA of their relationship, people said his wife stayed with him for better or better.

Mr. Crawley, eager to expand his economic footprint in America, purchased a $57 million condo in the heart of Manhattan. Rumors circulated he had his sights set on taking over Time-Warner, a plum in the business of news and entertainment.

The cost of prime Manhattan property had increased over 40% the past year, thanks to the new billionaires from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, China and the Czech Republic who had amassed a fortune via allocations of state-owned property and businesses. These New Capitalists had connived, bribed and hoodwinked their fortune from Old Guard Communist bureaucrats. Once they secured their ill-gotten wealth from this or that corrupt system, they immediately transferred the money to a safe, secure and highly regulated location. New York City became the beneficiary.

The city was awash with hedge funds and international banking institutions that were too big to fail — protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America — the American taxpayer.

"Give me your rich to this golden door!"

In her first staff meeting in the New York office, Ms. Dutmost explained the rules to the colonists: Henceforth all personal stories were to be reflective of the business of living.

The public wanted: Stories of financial failure and triumph and corporate greed. Anything about the public sector’s misuse